


Badhyāmahe

by Cyrelia_J



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Body Horror, Dark, Dubious Ethics, M/M, Medical Experimentation, OT3, Romance, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Twisted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-25 21:33:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14986061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyrelia_J/pseuds/Cyrelia_J
Summary: Gotham Fusion fic from a request prompt to my inbox now with minor edits from the original Tumblr postDoctor Julian Bashir has always been hesitant to display his unusual soul marks, fearful of what people may think of them. At thirty two years old he’s resigned himself to knowing wherever his soul mates are they’re likely better off without him. But then he starts a new job at Arkham Asylum, and there he meets Kelas Parmak, a beautiful but insane creature who immediately captures his attention. Maybe those dark secrets of his might find a home, after all.





	Badhyāmahe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tfbl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tfbl/gifts).



> May add more in the future but have a bit of a queue. This was a blast to write though!

The file says that the one in front of him is one of Strange’s creatures. It says that he was one of the less successful experiments before they achieved perfection in Fish Mooney; the suggestive ability is optimal but the appearance is unsuitable. It goes on to detail that the man, who only goes by “Doctor”, is not allowed to touch anyone with his bare hands. Nonetheless, Julian finds himself irritated as he sits across from the man, seeing that his arms are bound in a strait jacket. He was quite particular on the point of his patients not coming in restrained unless it was absolutely necessary. Since his commitment, according to the man’s file, he’s been a model patient. Julian refuses to say inmate. How else is he supposed to earn their trust and work with them towards rehabilitation if such staid barriers are set up from the outset?

 

Yes, he can hear his colleagues having a good laugh at that one.

 

Julian sighs, knowing that he’ll catch an earful later, but also knowing that they can’t expect him to work with patients like this and make any true progress. Doctor hasn’t spoken since being led in by one of the guards. He shuffled slowly, eyes downcast, nearly tripping as he was directed to sit. It took Julian a moment to realize that it was because the man couldn’t see, and he’d tersely demanded they provide the poor man with his spectacles. Julian had placed them on his face solicitously. The round wire frames made his blue eyes look large behind them as he blinked up at Julian with an expression that made his heart flutter strangely.

 

Julian didn’t know what to make of the man. Pity at first, was a given. Whatever Strange (Julian refused to call that creature a doctor) had done to him, he would never be able to live a life free of stares no matter how well they could repair his damaged mind. His skin was gray, smooth but scaly in places. He had unusual ridges that ran down his neck, over either side of his forehead, around his eyes, and a large round spoon shaped protrusion, a divot in the center. The man’s forehead went back farther than normal, long white hair starting there in a thick fall, messily braided down his back. It was difficult to tell his age as dramatically as his physiology had been altered, and Julian was careful not to stare too hard.

 

Staring too hard, putting his foot in his mouth, not knowing how to properly behave around people, were just a few of the things wrong with him. Julian often found himself disquieted in mind as well with compulsions, with arousing dreams that sometimes sickened him. Sometimes he was afraid that people could still see those things inside of him when they looked into his eyes but even those were nothing compared to his marks. Nearly everyone had the marks on the body for their soulmate. The rather attractive Detective Bullock, who popped ‘round from time to time, had a little blue paw print on his neck. Julian learned later, to his chagrin but hardly surprise, that he also had a significant other. That significant other was a veritable god of a man who he’d heard called “Jim”, also sporting that matching print. Loyal, strong, brave, incredible traits for two men who surely wouldn’t have given  _him_  the time of day anyway.

 

Julian’s marks were massive, though he kept them carefully hidden beneath his usual turtleneck and trousers. The first was a tricolor of black, gray, and white running up the back of him from ankles to neck. It was said those were the marks of shadow, deceit, of a natural liar prone to violence. The second mark was a brilliant abalone splash, radiant and warm, but the reader who’d doomed him to a miserable life of covering his marks, promised his parents it was a mark of depression and insanity, and that both unstable bonds would bring him nothing but misery. So he’d kept them hidden, ashamed and embarrassed. After all, everyone knew that those traits reflected from the soulmate to the self and they only spoke to how ugly he truly was beneath the kind and easy smile that he’d practiced.

 

It’s far better to let everyone believe he has none than to know what a monster he’s hiding.

 

Julian wonders, as he stands to unbuckle the straightjacket, if it’s better to look like the monster that one is purported to be or not. He’s careful as he works, tender as he can manage, apologizing softly when he catches the man’s long hair on a ring that he wears. 

“Sorry,” he offers trying to lighten the mood that seems to hang heavy between them, “I used to be pretty tender headed when I was a kid. Gave my mother no end of fits... There, much better. I think we can speak more freely now, don’t you?” He folds the piece on another chair and decides that he’s going to show the man a little trust. He can hear the censure in his mind as he takes a seat on the second chair on the right. He isn’t particularly worried about escape. The doors locks from the outside; better, they figure, for a patient to simply kill one of the unlucky fools cursed enough to be working there, than be allowed to run wild. Julian isn’t scared. He’s never particularly been scared of anything.

 

He watches the man look at him a moment with another curious blink, like he’s a puzzle to be solved before ducking his head and pushing his glasses back up on his face, taking a moment to adjust them. Julian isn’t sure why, but he finds himself staring. It isn’t because of some macabre sense of horror, but because the changes to the man’s physiology makes him look like an alien creature: a  _stunning_  alien creature. Julian doesn’t quite know what’s wrong with him. He shouldn’t be thinking those thoughts when the poor man spent god only knows how many years being experimented on to look that way. He thinks it’s because he’s sick, that’s why.

 

“Ah... you shouldn’t sit so close, Doctor Bashir,” the man says softly, looking ahead to the desk. Julian sees him twisting his hands slightly. “You know the experiments from the file, so it would be unwise to sit where I can reach you. Mmm I know there’s that illusion of trust building after all, but you shouldn’t endanger yourself for such a pretense. Your ambitions are noble but misguided, I’m afraid.” He laughs softly too, gently, another push of his glasses up and Julian really can’t explain why his breath catches to desperately when he sees that gesture again. “Ah, but the ambitious rarely find themselves here in Arkham unless they’re ambitious like Doctor Strange. Perhaps ambition isn’t quite the right word though. I’m sorry, that was unkind of me. You’re... just trying to help me, right? That’s unfortunate. You’ve read my file so you know that it’s quite hopeless.”

 

“No one is hopeless. I don’t believe that.” He can’t believe that. Because if there’s hope for even the worst of them then surely there’s hope for him.

“You’ve read my file, Doctor Bashir,” the man repeats with a sigh, crossing his arms. He’s made no move to touch Julian, to put him under that mind trance. Emboldened, Julian puts a hand on the man’s shoulder, seeing him jerk up and back when he does. The man’s right hand nearly reaches for him, but is shoved quickly back under his armpit. There’s that look again and Julian’s heart is definitely racing as his eyes dart to the man’s gray lips.

“I’ve read all my patient’s files.” Including the “Doctor’s”, whose actions by all objective measure made him a monster but... but Julian can’t stop staring at him, starting to feel warmth in his chest. He doesn’t move his hand from the man’s shoulder. 

 

“I read your file but I notice there’s a name missing. I very well can’t call you “Doctor”. It might get confusing.” He give that boyish smile that makes people smile back at him. It’s a good reassuring smile. He almost feels like this one is real. The man shakes his head.

“You and Elim are always so glib. Ah, the two of you would...” The man trails off there, a slight shift in his body that causes Julian’s fingers to brush the ridges of his neck. The man goes completely still and Julian... Julian feels like a shock just went through him, leaving him breathless, the entire front of his body so warm that he- “Kelas,” he hears the man gasp, eyes wide and beautiful as they look at him. He’s just starting to realize what that warmth is and he- “Kelas Parmak,” Kelas finishes by way of introduction, hurried, eyes darting to the door almost nervously now. But no one will come in. They’ve only just begun and there’s still time to... 

 

Impulsively, Julian pulls the loose black and white striped fabric down, and even with the mottled ridges and scales he can see the beginning of a radiant mark glowing brilliantly. It has to be his but... but it can’t be! Oh god, it can’t possibly be now, here, with a man who is completely-

“Doctor Bashir?” Kelas asks, about to place a hand over his before seeming to remember that he shouldn’t do that. The hand hovers over frozen.

“Julian,” he answers, mind swirling as the realization that one of his marks, one of his mates is here, right here next to him, so radiant and breathtaking that Julian doesn’t understand how anyone ever could have said that the front facing mark is anything but perfect. “Please call me Julian,” he rushes out, fingers running over those scales with more wonder, more excitement, everything forgotten the moment that he touches the beginning of that mark. He feels one of the other parts of him singing back through a mended connection that he never realized was broken, making his entire body warm.

 

“Julian,” Kelas repeats the name and it sounds like a whispered prayer from his lips. Those lips are gray, full, and parted slightly just breathing and begging him to... _Oh!_ Kelas has a hand over his now, having let it drop, leaving Julian to wait for that mind fog as Peabody (again, not deserving of “Doctor”) had described it. He’d read some of the transcripts of the recordings they’d gotten from her before she died so he knew what to expect. But to his surprise, aside from the rapid beat of his heart, he doesn’t feel anything happening to his mind, still able to speak, still able to-

“Kelas,” Julian answers wanting nothing more than to throws his arms around the other, bury his face in the crook of his neck, breathe his scent, taste his mouth, lift him off his feet, dance around the room with him and-

“D-... Doctor Strange’s research concluded that the soul mark ah... with two soulmates seems to interfere with the suggestive effects of the toxins,” Kelas answers with a shuttering of his eyes and a deep sigh into Julian’s touch. 

 

“Then you are my... er... we are... s-soulmates?”

“You’ve read my file, Julian.” He has. More than once trying to understand, just like the other patient files that he’s read, how a man could possibly be so cold or so gripped by madness as to-

“I’ve read it more than once. I know all of it. I-”

“You know that I don’t feel remorse, that I would do it again, Julian.” 

“think you should know there are things that you don’t know about me either. Things that aren’t in any file and...” And he still feels almost unworthy. There shouldn’t be comfort for a man who’s the sort of fraud that Julian is. “...I always swore that if I was ever lucky enough to find you that I would never let anything come between us... no matter what.” He’s never believed the words more fervently in his life than he does now when he leans in to kiss Kelas, that emotion threatening to spill out of him. It feels like a dropping of the floor when Kelas turns away. Julian moves his hand thinking of course it would be stupid for things to be so simple and that even a madman wouldn’t-

 

“They’re still watching us, Julian,” Kelas says with a quick dart of his eyes up towards the security camera. “This is... Mm... This wasn’t in the plan,” he finishes with a small rueful smile, his own eyes flitting to Julian’s mouth in turn, Julian swearing that he might detect just a hint of longing there as well. “Ah, but I don’t imagine it was in yours either... Oh dear, this  _is_  a dreadful mess,” He mumbles, pulling his knees up on the seat, resting his head on his knees.

“I’ll quit then. I mean I had... other opportunities I just... felt compelled to work here and now I know why. I know why and I... I can find other work. I can visit you, I can work to get you out of here with a lawyer maybe and in time we can-”Julian stops when Kelas raises a finger to his own lips. 

“You’re such a terribly sweet boy, Julian.” It seems that Kelas speaks with a darker tone when he says those words. It makes Julian shiver. “But ah... I don’t think that will be necessary.” He smiles at him impishly and Julian sees a little dimple on his right cheek when he does swearing he falls doubly in love.

 

“I don’t understand,” Julian says, though as he thinks of the last massive inmate breakout a few months before he was hired, he has almost a sinking feeling in his stomach. If Kelas is leaving already then-

“You will,” Kelas promises letting his legs drop back down, head tipped back to look at the ceiling. “I just need to make sure of something though. It’s minor but... Do you have another mark? Ah perhaps a... darker one mm no not only darker, darker, lighter, a bit of gray and-”

“Yes! Yes I do! I-” Julian clears his throat, trying to hard to be mindful when the stakes of their every interaction seem to weighted, every word counting for so much. Julian swallows. “Do you... do you know... is that yours?” he asks, trying to keep his voice soft, his posture less eager.

 

“That’s Elim,” Kelas answers with a look out to the bookshelf behind Julian’s desk. “Ah, a lifetime of books to fill and I couldn’t even begin to scratch the surface of Elim but...” Kelas puts his hands neatly back into his lap, letting Julian create professional distance once more. “Let’s allow Elim to do his work, and have a good session. Are you ah... sure that this is what you want, Julian?” Kelas asks to that distant bookcase, pushing his glasses back up again. 

 

Julian hesitates, if only as to at least give the illusion of consideration. Because in reality, he doesn’t need any. He doesn’t need anything but the reminders of his empty apartment, his friends, his colleagues who just... don’t understand him. He doesn’t need to dwell on that wrenching loneliness to know how badly that beautiful darkness calls to him. Not just the darkness, the shadows of the mark on his back, but the wild swirl of colors on the front, the madness, the beautiful insane “Doctor” who-

“I promise you that I’ve never wanted anything more in my life,” Julian swears, thinking that even in the black and white cotton jumpsuit that Kelas Parmak is one of the most beautiful men he’s ever seen in his life.

 

“Okay then, I will ah, consider that settled.” Kelas smiles again with a happy little sigh. “You’re such a sweet boy. Elim is just going to love you.”

 

\---

 

They have a good session. Or rather, Julian only imagines it comes off as good because he spends all of it asking Kelas the questions by memory, the words a recitation, only so that he can let his eyes roam freely over the baggy top slipping off a slim shoulder, Kelas absently chewing the end of his long braid. What was he feeling today? Happy. Why was he happy? A friend was coming to visit. Did he normally feel happy? Not lately but now... he thought he might have something to look forward to. What did he do this morning to help his mood? Showered -a sideways look to Julian with that one- read a few more chapters of _The Idiot_ , and then pondered the future.

 

They had run down the list of questions as Julian scribbled something and lost himself watching Kelas brighten up the entire room. That brightness didn’t dim as he described the painful procedures that Strange had put him through, which altered his body little by little, until he was the creature that Julian saw then. Julian had initially objected to Kelas use of the word “creature”, but reminded himself that correction of self image had to come about slowly. He reminded himself that it wasn’t his place to push, and Kelas might be gone soon, and there was another moment where there eyes met again, and all Julian could think was how badly he wanted to-

 

_THUD_

 

Julian looks over at the shutter, as it bangs, wondering how he’d forgotten to close the window with such a bitter storm reported that night. He sets the sketchpad down where he’d been idly drawing little doodles of Kelas, with the telly droning in the background. His phone is off, coming to the time of year - his birthday - when he spends a week avoiding texts from his parents who never seem to have the decency to lose his number. After all, it’s their fault that he’s not normal but twisted and-

“Shit,” Julian swears as the lights kick off with a particularly nasty clap of thunder and lightning outside. He feels the rain blowing in from the window as he pads across the worn wood floor barefoot. Julian grimaces at the damp beneath his feet, fighting to shut the windows and shutters both, getting wet for his troubles.

 

He stops then, a few clips behind him, sounding like rubber soles on the floor. Julian’s hearing has always been sensitive since-

“Who’s there?” he asks softly, hearing breathing now as he turns slowly back towards the bed. His respirations are still normal, that abnormal lack of fear response keeping him calm and curious, as he tilts his head and scans the room. He doesn’t see anything, his hands idly brushing water off on his loose sleep pants. Even the privacy of his own home he’s always been reluctant to be without a shirt for those marks, but not tonight. Tonight he celebrated them, watching the faint glow the splash of color gave long after he’d met Kelas. Tonight he isn’t wearing a shirt so when arms circle him from behind he feels the damp fabric of a shirt to his bare skin. Julian gasps. Not out of fear but out of-

 

“My my, Kelas was right,” he hears purred to his ear as a scaly palm slides over his chest, over the front mark. The voice is like thick honey, warm sticky breath, and he shivers with excitement. Julian knows it the moment the other hand circles around his neck to the other mark, to the dark mark, that this is the shadow prince. This is _Elim_. He can feel his lips spreading wide in a grin, in bliss, that second bond coming to completion as Elim continues speaking to him. “You aren’t afraid, are you?” he asks, and Julian’s head falls back right to the crook of a shoulder.

“Never,” he swears, feeling the heart of the mark, feeling his body singing, his very soul weeping at the feel of its other mate completing the puzzle. If he dies right now it till be in bliss.

 

“I’ve been waiting for you.”


End file.
